“In my classroom, above the chalkboard are giant purple letters that say, ‘Reading Is Thinking’,” writes Cris Tovani in her book “I Read It But I Don’t Get It.” Comprehension is a thoughtful process, she explains, and readers need instruction that shows them how to read and think. Tovani’s book goes on to explain how that instruction looks in her classroom. It’s one of many books teachers and parents can use to help children read better.

Seven Keys to Comprehension

In 1997, Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann, partners at the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition, published “Mosaic of Thought,” which explained how good readers use thinking strategies to build comprehension. Zimmermann followed with “Seven Keys to Comprehension,” a work designed to give parents and teachers practical advice on teaching children to read strategically. She explains how readers use their background knowledge and imagination to visualize what they read. Zimmermann also reveals how children can learn to ask themselves questions to help them find important details and make key inferences. Finally, she shows how readers can put ideas together to form a complete understanding of what they’ve been trying to comprehend.

Reading with Meaning

Debbie Miller, the author of several books on reading, outlines methods for teaching reading comprehension to elementary school students in “Reading with Meaning.” Miller discusses setting up a classroom where plan instruction around what students need individually and help those students with one-on-one conferences. Reading teachers, Miller believes, need to build relationships with their students based on trust and open communications. Miller teaches students to work with the same reading strategies Zimmermann and Keene outline in their works. However, in the book, Miller describes teaching students to apply those comprehension strategies independently.

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I Read It, But I Don’t Get It

Tovani, who also worked with Keene and Zimmermann, is a teacher and literacy coach in Denver. In this book, she discusses why many children who have learned how to recite the words on the page still struggle with comprehension. She believes struggling readers need to see how good readers think as they read. To promote thinking, Tovani asks children to write down what’s on their minds as they read. Tovani says writing makes readers pay attention to their “thinking voice,” the thoughts they have as they try to understand the text. By recording their thinking in the margin -- or on another piece of paper -- students create a permanent record of their attempts to understand the text. Readers can return to their thinking, revise their ideas and accumulate information needed to build comprehension.

Deeper Reading

In “Readicide,” English teacher and literacy consultant Kelly Gallagher warned educators about literacy practices that he felt killed student motivation to read. In “Deeper Reading,” he describes what effective reading instruction looks like. He tackles methods for getting students to tackle difficult books such as “Romeo and Juliet” and “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Challenging material, Gallagher explains, usually requires more than one reading. He outlines plans for what he calls “first-draft readings” and “second-draft readings.” Gallagher encourages readers to work through the confusing parts of their books and to reread passages to find new ideas they didn’t see in the first reading.

References

I Read It, But I don’t Get It; Cris Tovani

Seven Keys to Comprehension; Susan Zimmermann

Reading with Meaning; Debbie Miller

Deeper Reading; Kelly Gallagher

Resources

Mosaic of Thought; Susan Zimmermann and Ellin Oliver Keene

Readicide; Kelly Gallagher

Photo Credits

Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty Images

About the Author

David Raudenbush has more than 20 years of experience as a literacy teacher, staff developer and literacy coach. He has written for newspapers, magazines and online publications, and served as the editor of "Golfstyles New Jersey Magazine." Raudenbush holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a master's degree in education.